I am general editor of the Cambria Press Australian Literature series, publishing monographs on Australian writing, particularly contemporary fiction. My latest book is a history of Australian television drama, Creating Australian Television Drama: A Screenwriting History (Australian Scholarly Publishing). Until about 1993 my criticism was published under the name Susan McKernan.
Page 1. The Comedy of Misreading in the Fiction of RK Narayan Susan Lever [This article was publi... more Page 1. The Comedy of Misreading in the Fiction of RK Narayan Susan Lever [This article was published in RKNarayan: Critical Perspectives edited by AL McLeod,New Delhi: Sterling, 1994. pp. 77-85 ] In Joseph Furphy's Australian ...
This article compares Vance Palmer's classic novel, The Passage (1930), set in Caloundra, wit... more This article compares Vance Palmer's classic novel, The Passage (1930), set in Caloundra, with Susan Johnson's The Landing (2015), a comic novel of manners set at the northern end of the contemporary Sunshine Coast. It considers the novels’ different perspectives on Australian society and changing values, including attitudes to nature, arguing that Palmer's novel now seems more idealistic than realist while Johnson's cynicism about Australian life shows some disturbing elements beneath the comedy.
The study of writing by Australian women has become a major activity for Australian literary crit... more The study of writing by Australian women has become a major activity for Australian literary critics over the past ten years and a great deal has been achieved in the way of finding, reprinting, reading and discussing the work of women writers whose work had been overlooked or forgotten. The Australian women's writing project has gained such momentum that it may be time to ask ourselves about the nature of the feminist goals behind it. In this paper I want to consider some of the issues which feminism raises for literary critics interested in Australian women's writing. In particular, I want to address the inherent contradiction I see between some feminist literary theory and the project of writing women's literary history.The feminist theory which seems to offer the most far-reaching potential for the analysis of literature is that advanced partly by Helene Cixous and Luce Irigaray and partly by Julia Kristeva, and put into practice by many transatlantic critics such as Mary Jacobus, Toril Moi and Catherine Belsey. To summarise for the purposes of this paper, these writers locate feminism as a critique of the liberal humanist thinking which dominates Western European attitudes; reading Lacan, they identify a phallologocentric symbolic order and find feminism in challenges to this order. Cixous' well-known list of dichotomies between the dominant and the suppressed in Western culture - activity/passivity, sun/moon, culture/nature, day/night, father/mother, head/heart, man/woman - may be seen as a starting point for this perspective on feminism, because it identifies feminism with the qualities suppressed in our binary way of thinking (Cixous 1989, 101-116). This theory moves feminism beyond an exclusive concern for injustice to women to an ongoing, ever-shifting critical stance which concerns itself with all aspects of mainstream thinking. When applied to literature, these theories (and I'm conflating and simplifying) offer some inspiring challenges to the feminist writer: they suggest that experimental writing, in particular the attempt to reach towards experiences prior to language and to "write the body," is the most feminist of literary tasks. This pushing at the edges of language, this struggle to capture that which has been denied by the symbolic order, amounts to a political challenge to the systems of representation which force us into particular ways of understanding our world.The difficulty arises when the Australian literary historian turns to the material at hand - the body of work known as Australian literature, in particular writing by Australian women before 1970. Very little writing by Australian men and women during this period can be called experimental. The history of Australian literature is marked by a resistance to the major experimental practice of the twentieth century - modernism - and by an adherence to fairly conventional forms of realism in the novel and drama, and to tradition in poetry. Furthermore, the resurgence of modernist experiment in the sixties and the enthusiasm for postmodernism in the eighties have been most evident among men writers, several of whom have managed to retain mainstream attitudes in their experimental work. If we seek out Australian women writers publishing before 1970 - perhaps offering a list of novelists including Spence, Cambridge, Praed, Martin, Franklin, Richardson, Prichard, Stead, Barnard Eldershaw, Langley, Dark, Cusack, Tennant, Hewett, Astley - we would find ourselves elucidating a tradition based on the conventions of the nineteenth century realist novel. The few women poets to receive much recognition before 1970 - such as Mary Gilmore, Ada Cambridge, Lesbia Harford and Judith Wright - are remarkably careful to adhere to technical formality. Indeed the clear, rational qualities of their writing may have diminished their status during periods when romantic or lyrical qualities have been prized in poetry. In short, writing by Australian women until the lest twenty years has offered little which conforms to international notions of "ecriture feminine. …
Patrick Buckridge is that rare person — even in the academic world: a true scholar with a deep, s... more Patrick Buckridge is that rare person — even in the academic world: a true scholar with a deep, sometimes eccentric, passion for ideas. He belongs contentedly to Brisbane while engaging intellectually with the vast world of scholarship in history, language and literature. He has retained his interest in his first love, Renaissance literature, but understands that literature is also here and now, in the society around him. So his studies have extended to Australian writers, Queensland literary history, the history of the book, the history of literary criticism and the nature of readership for literary work. As his May 2013 public lecture demonstrated, he believes in the continued importance of attentive reading as a source of intellectual understanding.
A study of the work of Australian novelist, David Foster, up to his The Land Where Stories End. T... more A study of the work of Australian novelist, David Foster, up to his The Land Where Stories End. The book considers Foster's work in the context of his life and shifts in Australian society, and it examines the nature of satire and its development in a series of novels. The link allows readers to read the Introduction to the book.
Journal of the association for the study of Australian literature : JASAL, 2012
When Patrick White’s parents first sent him to Mt Wilson in the Blue Mountains as a boy of nine, ... more When Patrick White’s parents first sent him to Mt Wilson in the Blue Mountains as a boy of nine, he spent most of his time with Matt and Flo Davies, servants at the Wynne family house (Marr 49-51). Over the next few years, White spent his holidays watching as Owen Wynne built the current house ‘Wynstay’ in creamy stone with a grand vista north over mountain ridges (Marr 55). It seems to have lent some features to Xanadu, Norbert Hare’s grand house on the edge of Sydney in White’s Riders in the Chariot (1961). In that novel, the Hares (like the Wynnes) are Sydney merchants rather than graziers like their cousins the Urquhart Smiths (and the Whites); Mr Hare builds his Xanadu in stone complete with park gates, according to the layout of Wynstay: ‘golden, golden, in a frill or two of iron lace, beneath the dove-grey thatching of imported slates, its stables and bachelor quarters trailing out behind’ (Riders in the Chariot 15).
Journal of the Association for the Study of Australian …, 2006
My title for this paper came from reflecting on the two women honoured by the 2004 ASAL conferenc... more My title for this paper came from reflecting on the two women honoured by the 2004 ASAL conference and this annual lecture, Thea Astley and Dorothy Green, outstanding examples of the Australian ratbag writer and her counterpart, the cranky critic. I want to begin, ...
Chapter 11 Summer Rain: Sweet Nostalgia Susan Lever and Anne Pender Abstract Nick Enright&amp... more Chapter 11 Summer Rain: Sweet Nostalgia Susan Lever and Anne Pender Abstract Nick Enright's musical, written with Terence Clarke ... to be the principal leads, but Barry Doyle and Renie McKenna challenge their dominance; Peg Hartigan's flirtation with Johnny Slocum shares ...
Short article in honour of Elizabeth Harrower that considers her early career and the importance ... more Short article in honour of Elizabeth Harrower that considers her early career and the importance of 1957 to the Australian novel.
Discussion of the implications of the University of Sydney's decision not to appoint a Chair of A... more Discussion of the implications of the University of Sydney's decision not to appoint a Chair of Australian Literature after the retirement of Robert Dixon in 2019. Pulbished October 2019
On the Greek island, a conference reappraises the lives and work of Charmian Clift and George Joh... more On the Greek island, a conference reappraises the lives and work of Charmian Clift and George Johnston. Account of Hydra conference pulished in Inside Story, 19 October 2016
This short essay discusses 'The Floating World' with reference to the 2013 Griffin Theatre produc... more This short essay discusses 'The Floating World' with reference to the 2013 Griffin Theatre production. It is freely available online through the link--both to the Reading Australia website and Australian Book Review.
Page 1. The Comedy of Misreading in the Fiction of RK Narayan Susan Lever [This article was publi... more Page 1. The Comedy of Misreading in the Fiction of RK Narayan Susan Lever [This article was published in RKNarayan: Critical Perspectives edited by AL McLeod,New Delhi: Sterling, 1994. pp. 77-85 ] In Joseph Furphy's Australian ...
This article compares Vance Palmer's classic novel, The Passage (1930), set in Caloundra, wit... more This article compares Vance Palmer's classic novel, The Passage (1930), set in Caloundra, with Susan Johnson's The Landing (2015), a comic novel of manners set at the northern end of the contemporary Sunshine Coast. It considers the novels’ different perspectives on Australian society and changing values, including attitudes to nature, arguing that Palmer's novel now seems more idealistic than realist while Johnson's cynicism about Australian life shows some disturbing elements beneath the comedy.
The study of writing by Australian women has become a major activity for Australian literary crit... more The study of writing by Australian women has become a major activity for Australian literary critics over the past ten years and a great deal has been achieved in the way of finding, reprinting, reading and discussing the work of women writers whose work had been overlooked or forgotten. The Australian women's writing project has gained such momentum that it may be time to ask ourselves about the nature of the feminist goals behind it. In this paper I want to consider some of the issues which feminism raises for literary critics interested in Australian women's writing. In particular, I want to address the inherent contradiction I see between some feminist literary theory and the project of writing women's literary history.The feminist theory which seems to offer the most far-reaching potential for the analysis of literature is that advanced partly by Helene Cixous and Luce Irigaray and partly by Julia Kristeva, and put into practice by many transatlantic critics such as Mary Jacobus, Toril Moi and Catherine Belsey. To summarise for the purposes of this paper, these writers locate feminism as a critique of the liberal humanist thinking which dominates Western European attitudes; reading Lacan, they identify a phallologocentric symbolic order and find feminism in challenges to this order. Cixous' well-known list of dichotomies between the dominant and the suppressed in Western culture - activity/passivity, sun/moon, culture/nature, day/night, father/mother, head/heart, man/woman - may be seen as a starting point for this perspective on feminism, because it identifies feminism with the qualities suppressed in our binary way of thinking (Cixous 1989, 101-116). This theory moves feminism beyond an exclusive concern for injustice to women to an ongoing, ever-shifting critical stance which concerns itself with all aspects of mainstream thinking. When applied to literature, these theories (and I'm conflating and simplifying) offer some inspiring challenges to the feminist writer: they suggest that experimental writing, in particular the attempt to reach towards experiences prior to language and to "write the body," is the most feminist of literary tasks. This pushing at the edges of language, this struggle to capture that which has been denied by the symbolic order, amounts to a political challenge to the systems of representation which force us into particular ways of understanding our world.The difficulty arises when the Australian literary historian turns to the material at hand - the body of work known as Australian literature, in particular writing by Australian women before 1970. Very little writing by Australian men and women during this period can be called experimental. The history of Australian literature is marked by a resistance to the major experimental practice of the twentieth century - modernism - and by an adherence to fairly conventional forms of realism in the novel and drama, and to tradition in poetry. Furthermore, the resurgence of modernist experiment in the sixties and the enthusiasm for postmodernism in the eighties have been most evident among men writers, several of whom have managed to retain mainstream attitudes in their experimental work. If we seek out Australian women writers publishing before 1970 - perhaps offering a list of novelists including Spence, Cambridge, Praed, Martin, Franklin, Richardson, Prichard, Stead, Barnard Eldershaw, Langley, Dark, Cusack, Tennant, Hewett, Astley - we would find ourselves elucidating a tradition based on the conventions of the nineteenth century realist novel. The few women poets to receive much recognition before 1970 - such as Mary Gilmore, Ada Cambridge, Lesbia Harford and Judith Wright - are remarkably careful to adhere to technical formality. Indeed the clear, rational qualities of their writing may have diminished their status during periods when romantic or lyrical qualities have been prized in poetry. In short, writing by Australian women until the lest twenty years has offered little which conforms to international notions of "ecriture feminine. …
Patrick Buckridge is that rare person — even in the academic world: a true scholar with a deep, s... more Patrick Buckridge is that rare person — even in the academic world: a true scholar with a deep, sometimes eccentric, passion for ideas. He belongs contentedly to Brisbane while engaging intellectually with the vast world of scholarship in history, language and literature. He has retained his interest in his first love, Renaissance literature, but understands that literature is also here and now, in the society around him. So his studies have extended to Australian writers, Queensland literary history, the history of the book, the history of literary criticism and the nature of readership for literary work. As his May 2013 public lecture demonstrated, he believes in the continued importance of attentive reading as a source of intellectual understanding.
A study of the work of Australian novelist, David Foster, up to his The Land Where Stories End. T... more A study of the work of Australian novelist, David Foster, up to his The Land Where Stories End. The book considers Foster's work in the context of his life and shifts in Australian society, and it examines the nature of satire and its development in a series of novels. The link allows readers to read the Introduction to the book.
Journal of the association for the study of Australian literature : JASAL, 2012
When Patrick White’s parents first sent him to Mt Wilson in the Blue Mountains as a boy of nine, ... more When Patrick White’s parents first sent him to Mt Wilson in the Blue Mountains as a boy of nine, he spent most of his time with Matt and Flo Davies, servants at the Wynne family house (Marr 49-51). Over the next few years, White spent his holidays watching as Owen Wynne built the current house ‘Wynstay’ in creamy stone with a grand vista north over mountain ridges (Marr 55). It seems to have lent some features to Xanadu, Norbert Hare’s grand house on the edge of Sydney in White’s Riders in the Chariot (1961). In that novel, the Hares (like the Wynnes) are Sydney merchants rather than graziers like their cousins the Urquhart Smiths (and the Whites); Mr Hare builds his Xanadu in stone complete with park gates, according to the layout of Wynstay: ‘golden, golden, in a frill or two of iron lace, beneath the dove-grey thatching of imported slates, its stables and bachelor quarters trailing out behind’ (Riders in the Chariot 15).
Journal of the Association for the Study of Australian …, 2006
My title for this paper came from reflecting on the two women honoured by the 2004 ASAL conferenc... more My title for this paper came from reflecting on the two women honoured by the 2004 ASAL conference and this annual lecture, Thea Astley and Dorothy Green, outstanding examples of the Australian ratbag writer and her counterpart, the cranky critic. I want to begin, ...
Chapter 11 Summer Rain: Sweet Nostalgia Susan Lever and Anne Pender Abstract Nick Enright&amp... more Chapter 11 Summer Rain: Sweet Nostalgia Susan Lever and Anne Pender Abstract Nick Enright's musical, written with Terence Clarke ... to be the principal leads, but Barry Doyle and Renie McKenna challenge their dominance; Peg Hartigan's flirtation with Johnny Slocum shares ...
Short article in honour of Elizabeth Harrower that considers her early career and the importance ... more Short article in honour of Elizabeth Harrower that considers her early career and the importance of 1957 to the Australian novel.
Discussion of the implications of the University of Sydney's decision not to appoint a Chair of A... more Discussion of the implications of the University of Sydney's decision not to appoint a Chair of Australian Literature after the retirement of Robert Dixon in 2019. Pulbished October 2019
On the Greek island, a conference reappraises the lives and work of Charmian Clift and George Joh... more On the Greek island, a conference reappraises the lives and work of Charmian Clift and George Johnston. Account of Hydra conference pulished in Inside Story, 19 October 2016
This short essay discusses 'The Floating World' with reference to the 2013 Griffin Theatre produc... more This short essay discusses 'The Floating World' with reference to the 2013 Griffin Theatre production. It is freely available online through the link--both to the Reading Australia website and Australian Book Review.
Creating Australian Television Drama: A Screenwriting History, 2020
Television drama has been the dominant form of popular storytelling for more than sixty years, sh... more Television drama has been the dominant form of popular storytelling for more than sixty years, shaping the imaginations of millions of people. This book surveys the careers of the central creators of those stories for Australian television—the writers who learnt how to work in a new medium, adapting to its constraints and exploring its creative possibilities. Informed by interviews with many writers, it describes the establishment of Australian television drama production, observing the way writers grasped the creative and business opportunities that television presented. It examines the development of Australian versions of the major television genres—the sitcom, the police drama, the historical series, docudrama, and social drama— presenting a ‘canon’ of significant Australian television drama productions that deserve to be remembered. It offers an account of the emergence of work by Indigenous writers for television and it argues for the consideration of television drama alongside histories of Australian film and stage drama.
A genuinely collaborative, cross-cultural examination of the publication and reception of Austral... more A genuinely collaborative, cross-cultural examination of the publication and reception of Australian literature in the German Democratic Republic, this work is a revealing case study for newly global accounts of the cultural Cold War. 'A compelling case study of the cultural Cold War and its effect on literary exchange.' — Professor Wenche Ommundsen, University of Wollongong 'This is considered, nuanced scholarship of a high order, [with] surprising and illuminating results, far beyond what might have been thought possible … There are few works of cultural history that offer such a stark and startling dialogic opening-up.' — Professor Nicholas Jose, University of Adelaide Exploring the imaginative construction of the post-colonial South by the communist East, this collaborative study of the reception of Australian literature in the German Democratic Republic has resonance for all newly global reckonings of the cultural Cold War.
A study of the work of Australian novelist, David Foster, up to his The Land Where Stories End. T... more A study of the work of Australian novelist, David Foster, up to his The Land Where Stories End. The book considers Foster's work in the context of his life and shifts in Australian society, and it examines the nature of satire and its development in a series of novels. The link allows readers to read the Introduction to the book.
Nick Enright (1950-2003) was one of Australia’s most significant and successful playwrights. As a... more Nick Enright (1950-2003) was one of Australia’s most significant and successful playwrights. As a writer, director, actor and teacher he influenced theatre in Australia for thirty years. Enright wrote more than fifty plays for the stage, film, television and radio, translated and adapted more, and taught acting to students in varied settings, both in Australia and the United States. His writing repertoire included comedy, social realism, farce, fantasy and the musical. In addition to his prodigious contribution to all of these genres, he was a passionate advocate for the actor and the theatre in contemporary society.
In this volume Anne Pender and Susan Lever present a set of essays and recollections about Nick Enright’s work for students, teachers and scholars. The book offers a comprehensive study of Enright’s writing for theatre, film and television. Scholars, acting teachers and theatre directors have contributed to this work each illuminating an aspect of Enright’s remarkable career. The discussions cover interpretations of Enright’s scripts and productions, detailed analysis of his directing style, substantial background and analysis of his writing for musicals, as well as accounts of his specific approach to acting and to adaptation across genres.
This book defends realism as a feminist mode of fiction, tracing it through the work of Ada Cambr... more This book defends realism as a feminist mode of fiction, tracing it through the work of Ada Cambridge, Henry Handel Richardson, Katharine Susannah Pritchard, Christina Stead and others. It also considers the dialogue about gender politics with some Australian men writers such as Joseph Furphy, Vance Palmer, Patrick White and David Foster.
A two volume novel of pre-goldrush settlement in New South Wales, written by a woman who lived in... more A two volume novel of pre-goldrush settlement in New South Wales, written by a woman who lived in Australian 1840-45, before returning to England to live at Eton. It is clearly influenced by the work of Jane Austen.
The book considers the political context of the revitalised Australian literature of the immediat... more The book considers the political context of the revitalised Australian literature of the immediate postwar period, including the Cold War conflicts between the socialist realist writers, Quadrant, and the emergence of Patrick White, A.D. Hope and Judith Wright during this period. It is available from Allen & Unwin as a 'print on demand' or e-book through the above link.
... Fremantle, 1986), pp. 206, rrp. $15.00. Review(s) of: Effects of Light: The Poetry of Tasmani... more ... Fremantle, 1986), pp. 206, rrp. $15.00. Review(s) of: Effects of Light: The Poetry of Tasmania, edited by Vivian Smith and Margaret Scott, (Twelvetrees Publishing Company, Sandy Bay, 1985), pp. 175, rrp. $14.95. Review(s) of ...
A review and critique of the novel 'The Doubleman' by C. J. Koch. Review(s) of: The Doubl... more A review and critique of the novel 'The Doubleman' by C. J. Koch. Review(s) of: The Doubleman, by C. J. Koch, (Chatto and Windus, London, 1985), pp. 326, rrp. $19.95. Includes endnotes.
James Bulman-May, Patrick White and Alchemy, Kew, Vic.: Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2001. Ha... more James Bulman-May, Patrick White and Alchemy, Kew, Vic.: Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2001. Hardback, $55.00 Patrick , by Helen Verity Hewitt, White, Painter Manque: Paintings, Painters and Their Influence on His Writing, Carlton, Vic.: Melbourne University Press, 2002. Miegunyah Press Series 2; no. 41. Hardback, $49.95.
Review of 'A Paper Inheritance: the passionate literary lives of Leslie Rees and Coralie Stella R... more Review of 'A Paper Inheritance: the passionate literary lives of Leslie Rees and Coralie Stella Rees'
This review gives an account of Antonella Riem's study of Australian fiction in the frame of Part... more This review gives an account of Antonella Riem's study of Australian fiction in the frame of Partnership Studies which aim to promote a humane and positive approach to society.
Review of Helen Garner's The Yellow Notebook and One Day I'll Remember This in the online journal... more Review of Helen Garner's The Yellow Notebook and One Day I'll Remember This in the online journal Inside Story (insidestory.org)
Sydney Review of Books, June 2017, review of Beverly Farmer's 'This Water: Five tales'
Click Lin... more Sydney Review of Books, June 2017, review of Beverly Farmer's 'This Water: Five tales'
Click Link for the full paper.
Review of Brenda Niall's 'Friends and Rivals: Four Great Australian writers Barbara Baynton, Eth... more Review of Brenda Niall's 'Friends and Rivals: Four Great Australian writers Barbara Baynton, Ethel Turner, Henry Handel Richardson and Nettie Palmer'
Clip from interview with Tony Morphett at his home in Katoomba, January 2009. Interviewed by Susa... more Clip from interview with Tony Morphett at his home in Katoomba, January 2009. Interviewed by Susan Lever.
This is the recording of the conversation at the Regional Art Gallery, Armidale as part of the AS... more This is the recording of the conversation at the Regional Art Gallery, Armidale as part of the ASAL conference in February, 2015. Fiona Capp's Judith Wright lecture is on the same page.
Clips from Susan Lever's interviews with the Australian television writer, Moya Wood from the Nat... more Clips from Susan Lever's interviews with the Australian television writer, Moya Wood from the National Film and Sound Archive Youtube site. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MQz45ExKWo
Transcription of part of an interview with the television writers Cliff Green or the Australian W... more Transcription of part of an interview with the television writers Cliff Green or the Australian Writers Foundation, at his home in Warrandyte.
This adaptation for 5-6 actors has dialogue taken from Cambridge's satirical novel. The play mock... more This adaptation for 5-6 actors has dialogue taken from Cambridge's satirical novel. The play mocks the selfishness and self-dramatisation of a 'New Woman' who leaves her husband in Melbourne and returns to England without telling him. When she returns she finds he has married again, and he keeps her in the Esplanade Hotel, St Kilda, until his new wife finds out. The play ends in the death in childbirth of the new wife, and the old one brazenly taking her place as mother.
Review of David Hare's play 'I'm Not Running' at the National Theatre, performance on Tuesday 23r... more Review of David Hare's play 'I'm Not Running' at the National Theatre, performance on Tuesday 23rd October, 2018.
An overview of recent Sydney theatre that appears driven by nostalgia for the disappearing slum l... more An overview of recent Sydney theatre that appears driven by nostalgia for the disappearing slum life of the city, including The Harp in the South, The Sugar House, This Much is True and Darlinghurst Nights.
Review of Bell Shakespeare production of 'Antony and Cleopatra', March 2018 for Australian Book R... more Review of Bell Shakespeare production of 'Antony and Cleopatra', March 2018 for Australian Book Review Arts webpage.
Review of the STC production of The Father performed at the Wharf Theatre, STC, Sydney, with John... more Review of the STC production of The Father performed at the Wharf Theatre, STC, Sydney, with John Bell in the lead role, on 25 August 2017. Follow the above link to the review.
Review of Richard 3 with Kate Mulvaney playing Richard for the Bell Shakespeare company for Austr... more Review of Richard 3 with Kate Mulvaney playing Richard for the Bell Shakespeare company for Australian Book Review Arts Update.
Several established squatting families have produced writers and artists in an aristocratic tradi... more Several established squatting families have produced writers and artists in an aristocratic tradition of noblesse oblige: Judith Wright and Patrick White are the most striking examples since the 1940s. Both writers were supported in various ways by their puzzled families and their work expresses a difficult affection for life on the land. Both found a literary resource in their rural family heritage while consistently criticising its culture. This paper gives particular consideration to Wright's two histories of her family's life on the land, The Generations of Men (1959) and The Cry for the Dead (1981) as demonstrations of the double heritage of heroic pioneering at the cost of Aboriginal people and the land. Her late poem 'For a Pastoral Family' expresses succinctly her ambivalent feelings about her heritage: 'a doubtful song that has a dying fall'.
conference paper, Television and Literature Workshop, 2018
A discussion of Bevan Lee's 'A Place to Call Home' as a self-conscious television serial that all... more A discussion of Bevan Lee's 'A Place to Call Home' as a self-conscious television serial that alludes to Douglas Sirk movies and rewrites the 1950s from the perspectives of the 2010s. It considers the meaning of the ending, in the light of the alternate endings to Season 2.
The paper considers the similarities in approach to real events of Anna Funder's examination of t... more The paper considers the similarities in approach to real events of Anna Funder's examination of the GDR and its system of surveillance, and Helen Garner's account of the trials of the killer of a young man in Canberra. It argues that the 'novelistic', subjective approach to these real events counters the cold rationality of the state, and the legal process. The author/narrators openly side with the victims, speaking for the personal nature of experience, and afeminist perspective.
The paper considers the representation of early Australian settlement on television, through the ... more The paper considers the representation of early Australian settlement on television, through the ABC historical dramas of the early 1960s, Against the Wind, The Timeless Land, and recent versions such as Rogue Nation. It discusses the television focus on the personal and domestic, at the expense of the broad political account; the emphasis on conflict and melodrama. It argues, though, that the historical drama may have more to offer viewers than the documentary illustrated by drama. It ends with discussion of Pat Flower's Tilley Landed on Our Shore, in an abandoned genre of historical satire.
Jazz practices in the 1950s and 1960s represented High Modernism's commitment to individual artis... more Jazz practices in the 1950s and 1960s represented High Modernism's commitment to individual artistic improvisation. David Foster, a jazz drummer during the 1960s, was as much influenced by the privileging of individual aesthetic creativity in jazz as he was by his training as a scientist. The paper argues that literary improvisation (or its appearance) is one of the practices of modernism, especially in its satirical forms (Joyce, Burroughs, Beckett). It examines passages from Plumbum where Foster mimicks musical instruments, and where he seems to write as a form of improvisation. It compares two passages from The Glade Within the Grove where the 'apparent' improvisation appears contrived (entry into the Temple of Chance) and where it seems brilliantly digressive and original (Horrie MacAnaspie's shed).
The paper reads Jack Hibberd's satire on Barry Humphries, 'Breakfast at the Windsor' and consider... more The paper reads Jack Hibberd's satire on Barry Humphries, 'Breakfast at the Windsor' and considers Hibberd's interpretation of Humphries as a snob, and the evidence of Humphries's influence on Hibberd.
The paper notes the way that the documentary of life in the highlands of New Guinea adopts the st... more The paper notes the way that the documentary of life in the highlands of New Guinea adopts the structure of classical tragedy, and compares it with Louis Nowra's dramatic monologue in his novel about New Guinea, Palu.
The paper argues that the Australian social realist tradition moved from the novel to television ... more The paper argues that the Australian social realist tradition moved from the novel to television drama in the 1970s. It considers the example of the writer, Cliff Green, who was in the Realist Writers' Groups in the 1950s before establishing a career as a television writer of drama.
Eleanor Dark conference, University of Queensland, October 2001, 2001
In 1980 the ABC produced a television version of Eleanor Dark's The Timeless Land. More than a th... more In 1980 the ABC produced a television version of Eleanor Dark's The Timeless Land. More than a thousand pages of the trilogy were reduced by Peter Yeldham to 8 one-hour episodes, losing much of Dark's original vision. The series, however, was a popular and critical success. This paper will consider the transformation of the novels into a script, arguing that Yeldham remade the novels for a post 1970s generation. It will consider Dark's original novel as a popular work, and explore the qualities that continue to make it accessible to later generations of readers and viewers.
The paper considers the influence of the Beats on Australian fiction writing over the past forty ... more The paper considers the influence of the Beats on Australian fiction writing over the past forty years, particularly Kerouac and Burroughs on writers such as Frank Moorhouse, David Foster, David Ireland and Andrew McGahan. It also speculates about the ongoing influence of Philip Roth on both men and women writers since the 1970s.
Based on interviews with Australian writers for television in the 1960s and 1970s, the paper disc... more Based on interviews with Australian writers for television in the 1960s and 1970s, the paper discusses the way that television drama followed many of the interests of plays performed on the Australian stage during the New Wave of the late 60s and early 70s.
Though a Katoomba boy who has remained living close to the mountain forests, David Foster often f... more Though a Katoomba boy who has remained living close to the mountain forests, David Foster often finds the Blue Mountains disappoint the white European longing for meaning in nature. In his novels, characters seek in vain for some sort of enlightenment from the eucalypt forests, with his earliest published short stories and his first novel, The Pure Land featuring characters who despair of such enlightenment. In The Glade Within the Grove (1995) and its Ballad Foster searches for the religious possibility of mountain trees and rock forms, speculating about the possibility of a tree religion that might change Australians’ relationship to the natural world. Typically, Foster seeks out the contradictions in the white Australian experience of the Mountains—its cultivated cold climate gardens facing its wilderness. In his 1997 account of a walk from north of Mittagong to Katoomba, Foster contemplates the impossibilities of wilderness, and the lack of meaning in the Australian bush. The paper wonders to what degree poetry provides an answer—investing the natural world with sacred meaning.
A brief description of my research in the National Archives collection of ABC television drama sc... more A brief description of my research in the National Archives collection of ABC television drama scripts.
Many contemporary Australians have convict forebears, though their families may not know it. Whil... more Many contemporary Australians have convict forebears, though their families may not know it. While transportation to New South Wales ended in 1840, Van Diemen’s Land continued to serve as a secondary place of confinement, with prisoners shipped from the mainland colonies as well as from Britain. James Boyce estimates that the number of convicts still under sentence in Tasmania rose to a high of more than 30,000 in 1847, with three-quarters of the adult male population being convict or ex-convict. Nicholas Stanley, a Cornwall tanner, was transported to Hobart in 1837 for 14 years for receiving stolen livestock. This paper traces the remarkable number of written records about him, now available through Trove and the digitised Tasmanian convict records. It pieces together aspects of his long life in Tasmania and considers whether his life was typical of convict experience, and speculates about the ease with which the story of his imprisonment could be kept from subsequent generations.
This paper compares Vance Palmer’s classic novel, The Passage (1930) set in Caloundra, with Susan... more This paper compares Vance Palmer’s classic novel, The Passage (1930) set in Caloundra, with Susan Johnson’s The Landing (2015), a comic novel of manners set a further north on the contemporary Sunshine Coast. It considers the novels’ different perspectives on Australian society and changing values, including attitudes to nature, arguing that Palmer’s novel now seems more mythic than realist while Johnson presents a more cynical view of Australian life. It was delivered at the ASALvets conference in Caloundra on 18th April, 2016
Serious Frolic: Essays on Australian Humour, …, Jan 1, 2009
The paper considers the vaudeville and music-hall origins of much successful Australian televisio... more The paper considers the vaudeville and music-hall origins of much successful Australian television comedy, especially when comedy rides on the back of other television genres such as the chat show (Norman Gunston, Club Buggery). It then discusses two situation comedy successes--Mother and Son, Kath and Kim--and their different approaches to the grown child/parent configuration. It argues that Kath and Kim retains the vaudeville style, while Geoffrey Atherden's Mother and Son moves towards comedy drama.
Metro Magazine: Media & Education Magazine, Jan 1, 2001
The article considers Ian David's development as a docudrama writer for television from Police St... more The article considers Ian David's development as a docudrama writer for television from Police State, through Joh's Jury to Blue Murder, examining the claims of dramatic 'truth' as against 'factual' experience. It argues that David's dramatic interpretation offers more than the mere presentation of public events as entertainment.
Though a few naturalist plays from the 1950s and 1960s are acknowledged in Australian drama histo... more Though a few naturalist plays from the 1950s and 1960s are acknowledged in Australian drama history, the plays written for television by Australians who went to Britain and America have disappeared from consideration. This article discusses one of them, Peter Yeldham's Reunion Day as an example of the naturalism current in British television in the early 1960s. It discusses the play's deliberate restraint and depiction of 'ordinary' people. It also places the play in the context of other Australian plays that use Anzac Day or the veteran's reunion as subject matter.
Most of Nick Enright’s screenplays were adaptations from other texts, or the telling of other peo... more Most of Nick Enright’s screenplays were adaptations from other texts, or the telling of other people’s stories, and he wrote the award-winning scripts for Lorenzo’s Oil and Come in Spinner in collaboration with other writers. Nevertheless, all of Enright’s screenplays function like morality plays, asking questions about individual responsibility and the values of contemporary society. Often the moral questions focus on the body, particularly of a woman or child. In Come in Spinner the women must deal with the implications of their sexual bodies; in Lorenzo’s Oil, the disintegrating body of Lorenzo Odone is central; in Blackrock the dead and raped body of the girl lies behind a boy’s guilt; in ‘Coral Island’ Martin confronts AIDS. In each case, physical decline or destruction presents some moral crisis, particularly a central male character’s sense of guilt. This paper examines the way that Enright allows these individual physical crises to reflect on the moral state of society. It gives particular attention to Lorenzo’s Oil and the complex way that Enright and Miller present conflicting aspects of attitudes to the body and the mind, the intellect and humanity.
In the last forty years, we have witnessed a remarkable phenomenon -- the emergence of television... more In the last forty years, we have witnessed a remarkable phenomenon -- the emergence of television as a totally new medium for fictional writing, and the development of a new set of dramatic principles for it. Australian writers have been as much a part of this pioneering work as the writers of ...
A review of the television series 'Masters of Sex' for the online magazine 'Inside Story'. 8 Janu... more A review of the television series 'Masters of Sex' for the online magazine 'Inside Story'. 8 January 2015
A wedding, four plays and a TV series — do the British have something to teach us about scrutinis... more A wedding, four plays and a TV series — do the British have something to teach us about scrutinising power? A consideration of Meghan and Harry's wedding in the light of Rona Munro's James plays, Mike Bartlett's King Charles III, and the tv series The Crown. Published 6 June 2018 in Inside Story.
This is an edited extract from Chapter 1 of 'Creating Australian Television Drama: a Screenwritin... more This is an edited extract from Chapter 1 of 'Creating Australian Television Drama: a Screenwriting History'
Uploads
Papers by Susan Lever
'A compelling case study of the cultural Cold War and its effect on literary exchange.' — Professor Wenche Ommundsen, University of Wollongong
'This is considered, nuanced scholarship of a high order, [with] surprising and illuminating results, far beyond what might have been thought possible … There are few works of cultural history that offer such a stark and startling dialogic opening-up.' — Professor Nicholas Jose, University of Adelaide
Exploring the imaginative construction of the post-colonial South by the communist East, this collaborative study of the reception of Australian literature in the German Democratic Republic has resonance for all newly global reckonings of the cultural Cold War.
In this volume Anne Pender and Susan Lever present a set of essays and recollections about Nick Enright’s work for students, teachers and scholars. The book offers a comprehensive study of Enright’s writing for theatre, film and television. Scholars, acting teachers and theatre directors have contributed to this work each illuminating an aspect of Enright’s remarkable career. The discussions cover interpretations of Enright’s scripts and productions, detailed analysis of his directing style, substantial background and analysis of his writing for musicals, as well as accounts of his specific approach to acting and to adaptation across genres.
Click Link for the full paper.